Curated category
20th-century English male writers
- J. R. R. TolkienOn the evening of his 21st birthday, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien sat down and wrote a letter to a young woman named Edith Mary Bratt.
- Christopher NolanChristopher Nolan does not own a smartphone, and he has no email address. He hand-delivers his scripts to the actors he wants, and his wife handles the rest…
- Rudyard KiplingRudyard Kipling was born on the 30th of December 1865 in Bombay, and by the time he died in 1936, he had become something no single label can hold.
- Winston ChurchillWinston Churchill was born on the 30th of November 1874 inside Blenheim Palace, the ancestral home his family had held for generations in Oxfordshire.
- Raymond ChandlerRaymond Thornton Chandler was born in Chicago in 1888 and died in 1959, having spent much of the intervening years doing almost everything except what he…
- Thomas HardyThomas Hardy died at Max Gate on the 11th of January 1928, but not before dictating one final poem to his wife from his deathbed.
- Ian MacDonaldIan MacCormick entered the world on the 3rd of October 1948 in London. He attended Dulwich College before moving to King's College, Cambridge.
- Sacha Baron CohenSacha Baron Cohen walked onto the red carpet of the 84th Academy Awards carrying an urn he claimed contained the ashes of Kim Jong-il.
- W. H. AudenW. H. Auden died on the 29th of September 1973 in a Vienna hotel room, a few hours after reading his poems aloud at the Palais Pálffy.
- Antony BeevorAntony Beevor was born in Kensington, London, on the 14th of December 1946, into a family with writing in its blood going back generations.
- Stephen HawkingStephen Hawking spent his final years communicating at roughly one word per minute, twitching a single cheek muscle to select letters from a screen.
- Cavan ScottCavan Scott was born on the 18th of April 1973, and by any measure his career defies easy categorisation. He has written for Doctor Who and Star Wars.
- David AttenboroughDavid Attenborough turned 100 years old on the 8th of May 2026, and the Royal Albert Hall filled with singers, filmmakers, composers, and royalty to mark the…
- Geoffrey EltonGeoffrey Elton arrived in Britain in February 1939 as a Jewish refugee from Czechoslovakia, a teenage boy named Gottfried Rudolf Otto Ehrenberg.
- Ronald CoaseRonald Harry Coase was born on the 29th of December 1910 in Willesden, a suburb of London, and he would live to the age of 102 - long enough to see ideas he…
- Jeremy Black (historian)Jeremy Black was born on the 30th of October 1955. He would go on to publish more history books than most scholars manage to read in a lifetime.
- Mark LewisohnMark Lewisohn was born on the 16th of June 1958, and since the 1980s he has built an entire career around one band. He has worked for EMI, MPL Communications…
- Richard AldingtonRichard Aldington was born Edward Godfree Aldington in Portsmouth on the 8th of July 1892, into a household where books lined every wall and both parents…
- Gary WhittaGary Leslie Whitta was born on the 21st of July 1972 in England. His professional journey began within the pages of ACE magazine, a publication dedicated to…
- Eric ChristiansenEric Christiansen was born on the 15th of September 1937 and died on the 31st of October 2016. By the end of his life, he was a fellow emeritus of New…
- Correlli BarnettCorrelli Barnett was born on the 28th of June 1927 in Norbury, in the County Borough of Croydon, into a Britain that still considered itself a great power.
- A. L. RowseA. L. Rowse was born on the 4th of December 1903 in Tregonissey, a village near St Austell in Cornwall, the son of a china clay worker.
- Alan WattsAlan Wilson Watts was born on the 6th of January 1915 in Chislehurst, Kent, into a middle-class household at Rowan Tree Cottage, 3 Holbrook Lane, where his…